Research Guides: HIST 067: South American "Dirty Wars" and US Involvement (SC): Primary Sources: DNSA

Digging into declassified documents

Search DNSA collections available at Swarthmore

What is the National Security Archive?

Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents, leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, and public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information.

How do I find documents from the National Security Archive?

The Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) website lets you find and download documents from the National Security Archive. Documents are organized in thematic collections, so you can browse an individual set of documents or search across multiple collections. Research analysts at the National Security Archive select the documents included in each collection and tag documents by subject to make them easier to find.

How to Use the Digital National Security Archive

Here's an example of what you'll find in DNSA.

This diplomatic cable was sent from the US Embassy
in Santiago on October 19, 1988.

You can use subject tags to find related documents in the DNSA.

screenshot of digital national security archive document record

The tags for Subject, People, and Company/Organization are particularly helpful for finding documents when you're not sure what search terms to use.

Searching collection: Chile and the United States

Audio files of telephone conversations (24 results)

Example: recording and transcript of conversation between President Nixon (US) and President Echeverría Álvarez (Mexico)

Diplomatic cables and other documents about the 1988 plebiscite that led to Pinochet's defeat

To view your results another way, sort by date (oldest to newest)

Searching all DNSA collections

Documents about disappearances (689 results)

This search pulls up documents that focus substantially on the subject of disappearances. Analysts at the National Security Archive assign tags to each document based on their contents.
Use filters to focus your results:
- Collection: for example, El Salvador 1977-1984 (77 matching results in this collection)
- Organization: for example, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Argentina) (56 matching results about this organization)‎

Resources for understanding diplomatic cables:

Annotated State Department cable (Kristin Adair, National Security Archive)
Why do diplomats still send cables? (Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy)
Look up unfamiliar terms from cables in the State Department Foreign Affairs Manual (example)

How to Save:

Download PDFs of documents
You can save links to documents - look under All Options for the URL to copy.
- Example link: https://proxy.swarthmore.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.swarthmore.edu/docview/1679079821?accountid=14194

How to Cite:

Copy the following information.

Creator - What office or agency created this document?
Date
Title
Document number (if any)
For diplomatic cables, you need to know:
- Originating Office - Who created or sent this document? (e.g. Embassy of Santiago)
- Addressee - Who was this sent to? (e.g. United States Department of State)
- Cable Number - Find this at the top of the cable (e.g. SANTIA 007670)

HIST 067: South American "Dirty Wars" and US Involvement (SC)